Utilities not helping efforts for energy-efficient street lights

West View Borough’s 329 street lights siphon about $60,000 a year from its annual budget and comprise its largest electric bill, according to borough manager Ken Wolf.

Wolf would like to see them converted to energy-efficient LED lights. But West View, like many municipalities, doesn’t own its street lights. Its electric utility, Duquense Light, does, and it’s not ready for such a change.

Wolf contacted the utility after applying for a stimulus grant to retrofit its traffic lights to be more energy efficient. Street lights seemed like the logical next step, he said, since the Recovery Act offers some incentives to municipalities that retrofit street lighting.

“There was no take,” Wolf said of the utility’s response.

Joseph Vallarian, a spokesman for Duquesne Light, said the utility’s hesitation to such proposals is two-fold.

First of all, he said, “we don’t have a rate in our tariff to charge for LED street lighting,” and “anytime we want to change any type of rate, we have to go through the PUC (Public Utility Commission).”

Then there’s the issue of technology, which would have to undergo an internal review before such decisions can be made, he said.

The response is a familiar one to Chad Ubry, president of the energy services division at Eric Ryan Corp., which has helped several municipalities, including Aliquippa and New Castle, apply for stimulus funding for lights.

Ubry, whose company is based in Ellwood City, thought it might be good to include in the grant application a pitch for LED street lights. Ellwood City has had them for three years now and, according to estimates, has seen its annual energy bill go from $86,000 to $9,000.

“Duquesne Light and Penn Power have both told us that street lights are off the table at this point,” Ubry said.